MOSCOW, December 18 (Sputnik) – A pregnant woman who is clinically brain —dead is being kept on a life support machine in hospital to keep her baby alive, the Irish Independent reports.
The woman, who is in her mid to late 20s, suffered a massive internal injury as a result of a blood clot and was transferred to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, where the country’s leading neurosurgery department is based, a fortnight ago.
Doctors were unable to save her, but kept her on life support so her unborn baby could survive. The woman’s parents have expressed their wish that the life support machine be switched off.
According to Irish Independent, the hospital is now seeking legal advice. “The legal advice would be there is one life here and it is the unborn child. Everything practicable has to be done – and that’s both under the constitution and the legislation passed last year. There is also a high possibility the unborn child will not survive.”
News of this case comes just a day after Health Minister Leo Varadkar said that women’s lives are put at risk because of Ireland’s laws on abortion and that the constitutional restrictions on abortion are “too restrictive,” reported The Journal.
Mr Varadkar wants to allow abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality and where there are risks to the long-term health of the mother.
So far, according to the Irish abortion law, abortions are illegal even if a mother were to have a “stroke, heart attack, epileptic seizure” resulting in a permanent disability.
The shocking story is set to reignite the debate surrounding Ireland's abortion laws. In the meantime, people have been expressing their views on this matter via social media.
Welcome to Ireland! It has been 2̶3̶ 0 days since we last disgraced ourselves in front of the whole world. http://t.co/H2emwwZFx2
— Damien Owens (@OwensDamien) 17 декабря 2014
This story breaking about the clinically dead woman being kept alive because she's pregnant is horrifying.
— Maria (@Maria_____airaM) 17 декабря 2014
